Chapter 2My Husband Claimed He Was Allergic to Women,Until I Saw Him With His Mistress

“But Lorenzo, you knew perfectly well I can't swim. Weren't you afraid I'd die?”

In the end I couldn't hold it in. The question slipped out into the sterile quiet of the Family's private clinic, where even the machines seemed to hold their breath around him.

“I did the math. My men from the compound would reach you in ten minutes, no more. You might suffer a little, but you wouldn't die.”

“Serafina Costa, I told you long ago about my condition. You were the one who insisted on the blood oath. So what exactly are you complaining about now?”

Lorenzo's eyes were full of impatience, as if all of this were my fault.

But he wasn't wrong.

I had brought it on myself.

Lorenzo glanced at the heavy watch on his wrist and stood. The signet ring on his right hand caught the light as he turned it once, then let his hand fall flat against his thigh.

“Enough. The doctor says you can leave. I'll have a soldier drive you back to the estate. I have business.”

A few minutes later, the click of high heels and a girl's startled little cry drifted up from the courtyard below.

I climbed down from the hospital bed and looked out through the second-floor window.

His interpreter from that day stood there in a trench coat, her exposed ankles slender and pale.

She seemed to have twisted her foot, sticking out her tongue in a playful little pout.

Lorenzo said something to her, then crouched down and gently massaged her ankle. The Don of the Falcone Family, a man who had watched enemies bleed out without flinching, knelt on the pavement for her.

So the so-called allergy was nothing more than her not being the one he loved.

It felt like ten thousand horsemen were trampling through my heart, the pain so sharp I couldn't breathe.

Quietly, I called my consigliere.

“Draw up a casting-out. An alliance broken, all of it. Yes. I want out of the oath.”

When I got back to the estate, a message came in from Lorenzo.

“Because of what you did, you upset an important guest. I'm hosting a sit-down at the club. You'll apologize properly.”

But what was my crime?

That I shouldn't have steadied him, that I should have let him go over the cliff?

Or was it that ridiculous allergy to women he wore like a shield?

Still, I agreed.

On the night of the sit-down, I arrived at the Family's club almost the same moment as Lorenzo. Conversations dipped as he crossed the floor, men straightening without knowing they did it.

Right at his side, close as a shadow, was that girl called Delphina Serpico.

Her gown and his tie were both sapphire blue, cut by the same hand.

A matched set the designer had released to mark her own tenth anniversary with her husband.

And we stood several yards apart, as distant as strangers.

Feeling the searching eyes of every made man and every wife in the room, Lorenzo hesitated, then started toward me.

I turned on my heel and walked straight to the guest of honor, holding out the gift in my hands.

She was a woman of great grace. Though she couldn't speak, she still signed her concern to me.

“Signora Falcone, please, there's no need to be so formal. I heard you lost your child. Are you all right?”

Delphina hurried over, eager to interpret, but I raised a hand and stopped her.

I lifted my glass to the woman and smiled politely.

“Thank you for your concern. And thank you for reaching out to help me, when my husband was so afraid of his allergy that he wouldn't pull me from the water.”

“Though I think that child had no wish to come into this world either. After all, his father saw his mother as a virus, a plague to be feared. A child born into a Family like that would never be happy.”

“So I'm going to break the oath with Lorenzo, so I stop holding him back.”

Then I turned to Delphina, letting every soul in the room hear me.

“Signorina Serpico, even though my husband was holding you and comforting you at the time, I hear you were badly shaken.”

“So I won't trouble you tonight. I'll manage on my own. Enjoy your dinner.”

The room went quiet the way a room goes quiet when a gun is drawn. Then the whispers came, low and fast beneath the music.

“What does that mean? Signora Falcone went off a cliff and lost the child because the Don was busy holding another woman? Isn't he supposed to be allergic to women?”

“His own blood-bound wife was about to go over, and this one wasn't in any danger at all, so what was there to fear? She still needed another woman's husband to hold her? What's between her and the Don?”

“It's plain enough, isn't it? Even her dress matches the Don's tie, a matched set. She's his kept woman.”